


i didn't know if you'd care if i came back (i have a lot of regrets about that)

by thisismetrying



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Beth centric, But also has a bunch of Benny dialogue, Canon Compliant, Drug Addiction, F/M, I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, I could literally write a hundred fics based on this is me trying and beth harmon, Post-Canon, Recovery, Song: this is me trying (Taylor Swift), Songfic, THESE TWO LIVE IN MY MIND RENT FREE OKAY?, mostly - Freeform, this is me trying is Beth's theme song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28931871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisismetrying/pseuds/thisismetrying
Summary: Benny speaks again. “You didn’t come back.” The again an unspoken ghost between them.She looks up at him, meeting his eyes. “I know.”orwhat happens after Beth defects to the Soviet Union
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Comments: 25
Kudos: 105





	i didn't know if you'd care if i came back (i have a lot of regrets about that)

**Author's Note:**

> Another Beth/Benny fic that I wrote while I'm drunk because these two LIVE IN MY MIND RENT FREE AND I LOVE THEM 
> 
> All lyrics (in italics) belong to Taylor Swift and I do not own the lyrics or the Queen's Gambit (they own me lol)
> 
> Also again, this was supposed to be 2,000 words and it ended up being almost 6k. I think at this point, if I ever want to write a short fic, it's going to have to just concentrate on one or two scenes haha

_I've been having a hard time adjusting_

Beth defects to the Soviet Union.

Her CIA agent almost forcibly drags her back to the US, until she seeks refuge in the Russian embassy and there is an altercation and then _he_ is forced to seek refuge at the US embassy.

She has decided that she needs to be where the best are, and that’s Russia. She’s outmatched everyone in America already. Her laser focus on chess tells her there’s nothing left for her there.

If she’s going to play Borgov for the Championship, she’s going to have to study with them, learn their methods, get inside their heads.

To be the best, you have to play the best.

Besides, the chess halls are better here. No plastic pieces on plastic boards.

-

Still, sometimes she misses America. Home. Not the chess there, but the people, sometimes. The family she might have almost had there (if she hadn’t left).

The Russians make her feel welcome enough. She likes Moscow well enough; likes the cold air, likes the seriousness, likes the way chess is almost a national pastime.

Sometimes it’s lonely. It’s not lonely at the top, like it was in the US, with only her and Benny there. Here, there are plenty of top chess players who truly challenge her, if not beat her.

She spends two years playing workman-like chess, playing Grand Masters, learning from the best, and sometimes even teaching them. She doesn’t leave the Soviet Union the whole time, wants to wait until international forces are a little less interested in her. Besides, she all but forfeited the title of US Champion when she defected, and now the only title that matters is the World title. 

Borgov is still a formidable opponent and although he seems fond enough of Beth, he makes it clear that he doesn’t have any intention of giving up his title so easy.

That’s just fine with Beth. She throws herself into studying, into mastering the game, into becoming the best. There is little else to do.

-

She wins the world championship at 22-years-old.

She beats Borgov in a resounding victory, the supermajority of the matches going to her.

At first, it’s exhilarating, being the world champion. There is press and complimentary pretty dresses and smiles and congratulations.

But then there are the questions. _What next?_ Is the question everyone wants to know. All the magazines and newspapers ask her.

And it seems that every outlet remotely related to chess or women wants to interview her, never mind that she’s a defector (if anything, it makes her story all the more appealing to them).

Their interest isn’t satisfied by the short telephone interviews they get with her, either.

So they go and track down her old orphanage, her friends, her old opponents.

Including Benny Watts.

But Benny Watts, who usually always has something smart (or scathing) to say, who always gives a good soundbite (why do you think he makes so many covers?), says nothing.

Not a word.

When absolutely forced to address rankings, he refers to her as “the World Champion” and acts as if he’s never met her. It’s as if the board of their relationship has been reset.

For all intents and purposes, Benny Watts acts as if Beth Harmon doesn’t exist.

She doesn’t know if she should be insulted or not, doesn’t understand.

So she turns back to what she does understand, and has always understood: chess.

-

_  
I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting_

Two years later, Girev beats her.

It is a tough tournament. 24 matches against Girev, and she loses narrowly, 13 to 11.

He is World Champion at 16, and _I am nothing_ , she thinks to herself.

Beth hasn’t taken pills or touched the bottle in two years, but she feels as if she’s crashing down from a high.

She reaches for the bottle.

-

_  
I didn't know if you'd care if I came back_

When she’d first defected, she’d made a single phone call.

“Cracker, why are you doing this?” Jolene has asked softly, a million miles away.

“I have to play the best,” she had said. It had seemed so simple to her.

She’d wired the money she owed to Jolene and told her she’d call. (Jolene calls her for the first six months, begs her to come back, despite the political impossibility of it all, and then, when Jolene accepts that Beth won’t return, the calls get shorter, and all Beth has to offer is descriptions of her chess matches, and Jolene gets into law school, and eventually, the calls stop).

There was no one else to call.

She’d thought about calling Benny, but he’d said not to call him anymore. The words are seared into her mind. Yes, he’d called her in Moscow, but, she reasons, that could have been just as much about fulfilling his “let’s play as a team like the Russians” fantasy as it could have been about her.

He hadn’t called after she’d won, after all.

And when he’d reclaimed his title as US Champion, he’d declined all invitations to the Soviet Union, even forgoing the lucrative prize money and the lavish tournament halls.

No, she’d reasoned, he didn’t want anything to do with her.

His silence after her World Championship confirmed it for her.

-

_  
I have a lot of regrets about that_

She leaves the Soviet Union after her loss to Girev. She’s not kicked out, exactly, but she doesn’t have a place there any more. Who would want a cast-off American, who’s not even the best anymore?

Of course, she can’t go back the United States.

Where would she go to there anyway? Her house in Kentucky is long taken possession of.

The image of a concrete basement with no couch and a shower in the corner briefly enters her mind.

Before Beth decided to stay in Russia, to defect (not that she really thinks of it in those terms: her decision was purely about chess), she’d thought about taking a plane to New York.

But then Benny’s words had echoed through her mind and she’d felt colder than the winter wind in Moscow, more hollow than she had when Mr. Shaibel had told her she’d had to resign.

So she’d stayed.

Sometimes, she wonders what would have happened if she’d went there. Would Benny have let her in? Would he have been glad to see her? Would they have trained together more? Would she still have won the World Championship? Would she still have lost two years later? Would she have a place to go now?

But it is no use asking the _what ifs_ , thinking about the _would haves._ It is touch-move. Once you pick up a piece, you have to play it.

They would swallow her up whole, and even drunk and high, she doesn’t think she can face those questions, doesn’t think she can swim in that pool of regret without drowning.

-

_  
Pulled the car off the road to the lookout_

She travels for a few months, drops off the face of the earth, seemingly.

She visits all the countries she can without getting extradited back to the United States. She never stays too long.

It doesn’t matter though, because it’s not like she’s missing out on any sights or world wonders. Because she sits in her hotel room and drinks and then goes out to the pharmacy and comes back and drinks some more.

Sometimes, at the pharmacy, she’ll pick up a copy of whatever chess magazine is available. She’ll read it cover to cover, hungrily seeking any news, reading the most interesting games, checking the rankings. But she has a strange feeling of being on the outside looking in.

Onto the next flight.

- _  
Could've followed my fears all the way down_

The pills and the drink numb the questions that swirl in her head, numb the feelings of nothingness, of worthlessness, numb the world out.

A few times, someone in some sketchy bar somewhere offers her something harder, a little powder or a syringe. And she’s tempted. Sometimes, she just wants to grab it and snort it or inject it or whatever it is and be done with it. But each time, she finds it within herself to politely decline.

Better to stick to the vices she knows (and that she knows love her).

-

_  
And maybe I don't quite know what to say  
But I'm here in your doorway_

She gets back to the chess circuit after a few months of traveling.

No one thinks much of it, it seems. Like it’s almost normal for the losing champion to disappear for a while, lick their wounds in private. And maybe it is. _What does this say about us?_ she thinks, before putting it to the side.

Her first tournament after she loses the World Championship to Girev is in Norway.

None of the Russians are there, but there are quite a few other high-profile international players.

Including the reigning US Champion.

-

She shows up at his hotel door.

He opens it up and he is bare-chested, in a floral kimono and low slung jeans, a queen piece in his hand, like he was in the middle of moving a piece when she’d knocked.

Seeing him is like the first time all over again. Her breath catches in her throat and anything she was about to say disappears. She knows that it’s her move, but it’s like when she was little and still learning all the openings, when she still had to consult a book to know the names of the moves, to learn the sequences. Except there is no book now.

He looks at her, eyes meeting hers for just a second before flicking away. He doesn’t look shocked to see her here, but then again, it seems that very little has ever surprised Benny Watts.

Just as she’s about to open her mouth, he goes to slam the door in her face.

She grabs the edge of the door just in time.

“Wait, Benny, I’m sorry.” Sorry for what, she doesn’t know exactly. But she knows she’s sorry and she doesn’t like him being here and not talking to her.

“I don’t care Beth,” he says in a carefully monotone voice, almost like he’s practiced saying the words before.

 _Well, see, he never cared any way,_ a nasty part of her mind tells her. But the other part of her has seen the way he’s avoided her so far at the tournament, the way he’s suddenly become busy when she’s approached, the angling of his hat so he doesn’t have to meet her eyes, the way he hasn’t spent too much time in the common areas. That has to mean _something._

“You’re angry with me,” Beth says.

“I’m not anything with you anymore, Beth,” he says quietly.

The same twisted feeling that she got when she realized that Benny was pointedly not talking about her to the magazines rises. She looks down at her shoes.

Benny speaks again. “You didn’t come back.” The _again_ an unspoken ghost between them.

She looks up at him, meeting his eyes. “I know.”

“You didn’t even call.”

She looks away. “I didn’t know if you’d care.”

Benny looks at her in disbelief. “You didn’t know if I’d care?” he yells. “I paid three hundred dollars to call you from New York and you didn’t know if I care?” He laughs mirthlessly.

He says it like it’s so obvious. Like it’s so obvious to know that someone cares, that you have a place in their life. _Maybe it is easy, for Benny,_ she thinks. _He’s_ Benny Watts, _and he has never had to question his place in life._ Not like she has.

This was obviously a mistake, she thinks. So she turns to leave.

Benny’s hand wrapping around her arm surprises her. She turns, back hoping to find the same lust in his eyes as five years ago after a few drinks and some speed chess. Instead, she finds fury.

“No. You don’t get to come here and knock on my door and then just _leave,_ ” he snarls.

“I called you three years ago in Moscow, I got everyone together for you. And not because I knew you needed the strategic help. God knows you’re smart enough to beat all of us half asleep. But because you needed to know that people were there for you. _I_ was there for you. And then you didn’t even return my calls. Didn’t call or write to let me know you were staying. I had to find out about it when someone from the goddamn Federation called me asking if I knew anything about it. And why did they call me? Because they thought that we were close. I thought we were at least friends. But I guess I was wrong.” The words come out hard, with scorn and bitterness, cornering her like an inevitable checkmate.

“Ben-“ Beth starts.

“No,” he says, his voice all hard edges. “You listen.”

“You didn’t come back and you didn’t call and now you want to show up here, to what? Apologize? To forget? To fuck? Well, forget it. I lov-“ Benny stops himself just in time to recover his pride. He closes his eyes and takes in a few breaths. “You didn’t even call me when you lost. You’re only here now, what, because it’s convenient?” Resignation creeps into his voice. “I may not be the best in the world, but I’m not a damn sucker, and I’m not anyone’s consolation prize.”

He looks down like he’s just realizing he’s gripping her arm. He drops it like he’s realized he’s picked up the wrong color piece.

He runs his hand over his face. “Just, forget it Beth. Forget it.”

“Benny—”

The door closes, like a timer running out with too few moves.

-

_I just wanted you to know  
That this is me trying  
I just wanted you to know  
That this is me trying_

Benny makes it clear that he has no interest in interacting with her, much less actually talking with her.

Of course, this becomes unavoidable when they have the final match together.

In anticipation, Beth goes to the bar and almost runs them out of gin.

At least if she’s drunk, she won’t have the stupid urge to try to talk to him, to try to apologize, to try to whatever. He doesn’t want to hear it, he’s made that clear.

She’s so fucked up the next day, that he almost beats her. Almost. But he knows her too well, and he’s correct in that she can beat him half asleep, or in her case, half drunk, half hungover.

 _All that talent still wasn’t enough to beat Girev though,_ she thinks, bitterly.

She doesn’t try to talk to him, but she does go to shake his hand afterward. It’s the sportsperson-like thing to do.

He refuses and flees, his trench coat flapping after him, like a cowboy leaving dust in his tracks.

-

_They told me all of my cages were mental  
So I got wasted like all my potential_

Maybe Harry was right. Maybe she is just another Morphy.

The pride and sorrow of chess.

But then again, she’s not the pride anymore. Maybe that just leaves sorrow.

Well, she can give them sorrow.

She drinks like never before, she’s sure her liver will give out in a few years. _Maybe for the best,_ she thinks. What’s the point if she’s not the best?

She drinks before matches, goes out and parties with all the locals, would put her younger Paris self to shame. She still wins.

Beth doesn’t know whether she does it to forget, or just because it feels good, or to prove a point: that she’s still good enough to beat almost anyone, even when she’s drunk out of her mind.

-

_  
And my words shoot to kill when I'm mad_

She’s at another hotel bar at another invitational in some other country getting drunk before another pointless match when she hears the voice.

“Beth, put the beer down.”

Benny’s face blurs before her. Here he is in his cowboy/pirate glory, trench coat and cowboy hat and necklaces as in place as ever.

She’s so drunk, she laughs.

He frowns. “You’re wasting yourself away.”

She sneers. “What do you care, Benny?”

“I care about talent, Harmon,”

“Don’t call me that,” she says, clutching her beer bottle and getting up from the bar stool. “You closed the door in my face,” she accuses.

“I didn’t want to hear your apologies,” he says, his face warring between trying to stay calm and blowing up. “Not that I wanted to see you drink yourself to death,” he grits out.

She stands up straight. “I’m not wasting anything Benny. I can still beat everyone at this damn tournament, _including you,_ ” she says. “Easy.”

“That may be so, but you’re a fucking drunk.” Benny’s voice is rising now, and they’re attracting spectators.

 _Well, he always did love a crowd,_ Beth thinks bitterly. _Stupid egotistical narcissist._

She could turn around and leave, she doesn’t have to deal with this. But he started this. If he wants a scene, she’ll give him a scene.

“Yeah?” she says, stepping closer to him. “At least I know what I am Benny. Unlike you.” She jabs her finger into his chest. “At least I’m not a gambler, gambling away all their money so they have to live in a shitty apartment.”

Benny’s face is impassive. She’ll have to try harder. She wants him to feel like she did when he slammed that door in her face. When he’d told her not to call.

“At least I don’t wear some ridiculous getup just because I’m insecure and want to pretend I’m mysterious,” she scoffs. “I can read you like an open book.”

Benny still looks fairly unfazed, though he does cross his arms and his brow is furrowed. But she’s on a roll now, she’s not even sure she cares if her marks are hitting their target. She’s tired of feeling like nothing. “You’re a fucking narcissist. I know why you called me in Russia. So you could feel like some hero, swooping into save the day, just like you want to now, by telling me how to drink. Just like you wanted to by training me before Paris. But guess what Benny?”

They’re so close now, they’re almost chest to chest and all it would take would be a slight movement forward and they’d be kissing.

_“I don’t need you,”_ she snarls. _“I never have.”_

“I’m not a pathetic, lonely, loser, chasing down my ex-fuck,” she says. And her brain screams at her that she could just as well be talking about herself as Benny. But she shuts it down.

Benny parts his lips, maybe to kiss her, maybe to reply, maybe, maybe, maybe.

But Beth can’t stand it. She decides to go for the killing blow. She has nothing to lose now. 

“Unlike you,” she continues. “At least I don’t love someone who doesn’t love me back.”

He recoils as if she’s slapped him. Maybe it would have been better if she had.

“No,” he deadpans. “You just show up at their doors, begging for forgiveness you don’t deserve.”

She runs.

- _  
I have a lot of regrets about that_

At the next tournament, she’s slightly more sober. Sober enough to feel bad about what she’d said to Benny last time and annoyed enough that the only even somewhat friendly face around pretends she’s not even in the room.

So she shows up at his door again. She’ll _make_ him forgive her.

“Benny, I’m sorry.” She’s in her sexiest dress, hoping it’ll be both an apology and a treat for her. It’s been a bit since she’s been taken to bed, and she still likes his hair.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to impress him.

“Are you kidding me? _Are you fucking kidding me?_ ” he practically howls, his voice echoing down the carpeted hallway. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“No, Benny, look I’m really sorry and I miss you and—”

He doubles over in laughter then, and doesn’t stop for at least a minute. This is not what she expected. She reaches back to touch behind her neck.

When he finally stops laughing, he leans against the doorframe. “Fine, you want to apologize, apologize,” he smirks.

She’s irritated now, but she tries to continue. “I’m sorry I said all those things to you in the bar Benny,”

He looks at her, one eyebrow quirking up.

“And I’m sorry for all the other stuff too. Can’t we be friends again?” she blows out. She didn’t exactly have a plan for this apology, so she figures that’s the best it’s going to get. God, she needs a(nother) drink. She just wants Benny to not be mad at her anymore.

“God Harmon, that’s your apology? For someone so smart, you’re so un-self-aware.” He shakes his head. “Apology not accepted.”

He closes the door but she’s already on her way to the bar.

- _  
I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere  
Fell behind all my classmates and I ended up here_

She doesn’t know exactly when it starts to make a difference, but it does.

The drinking, that is. And the pills, her lovely little pills she’s returned to.

She starts to lose focus during matches, it takes her a little longer to make a move. The board on the ceiling gets a little blurry. All she can think is that she wants another fucking drink, another pill. Just to take the edge off. She doesn’t want to sit in the halls playing on these (cheap plastic) boards, doesn’t want to play them even when they’re beautiful marble sets.

She just wants a goddamn drink.

-

She’s found in some dirty godforsaken alley next to a club. All her clothes are on and in place and she still has her purse and her ID, and even all her cash is still there. 

This wasn’t a mugging or any violent crime, the police conclude. So instead, they refer her to a social worker. They are, after all, annoyed at the apparent waste of resources for a call out for some girl found in an alleyway when all it turned out to be was some washed-up chess champion who had too much to drink and blacked out in the alley.

The social worker has black curly hair and wears skirt suits and reminds her of Alma, ironically. “Have you thought about recovery programs, dear?”

She starts to shake her head no, but then the social worker starts talking about possible fines and punishment, and how the country offers rehabilitation as an option instead.

Recovery it is.

- _  
Pourin' out my heart to a stranger_

The program is strict and dull and it makes Beth want to drink more than ever, at first. But she obviously can’t.

So she finds other things to occupy her, once she’s stopped non-stop vomiting and shaking and begging for just one little fix. Now she’s just irritated all the time.

She teaches the other patients (the ones who are patient enough to sit down and listen, at least) chess. She shows them the rules and she enjoys beating them mercilessly. She’s neither as generous nor patient as Mr. Shaibel, but it’s something to occupy her time, she thinks.

Eventually, the shakes stops and her body adjusts to not having alcohol and other substances in it. But her mind still craves it, needs it to take the edge off.

The therapist talks to her about abandonment issues and self-esteem and self-worth. At first, she tunes it all out, playing games on the ceiling. Eventually though, she starts to half-listen to the therapist because it’s been so long since she’s had any real challenge or stimulation, even the games on the ceiling are getting boring. And she finds that some of what the shrink says resonates. She doesn’t like to pick it apart too much though.

Group therapy is surprisingly cathartic.

She thought it would be all crying girls and sob stories and pathetic people. And it is that, she won’t lie. But it’s also a good time for reflection. Hearing other people poke at their scars and scabs and wounds helps. Makes her think it’s not so abnormal, think that maybe it’s possible.

One session, they’re tasked with drawing up a list of people they’ve hurt with their behavior.

Beth stares at her piece of lined paper for a while. Her list could go on forever, she thinks. She’s not ready to make the entire list, but she does make herself write down two names:

  1. _Jolene._
  2. _Benny._



- _  
But I didn't pour the whiskey_

Rehab sobers her up. She’s been sobered up before, sure, but not like this. It’s still a process, but slowly, but surely, she’s picking a part why exactly she drinks, why the pills give her such a warm feeling.

Why she can’t seem to put down the bottle once she starts.

At the start of it, all she wanted to do was drink herself to death, get herself in such a state of pills, that she’d just fall asleep and never wake up.

But then there was the flash of her mother before her eyes. Both mothers. Alma and her birth mother.

Killing themselves, in one way or another. She will not be the next in that tragic line.

She told the therapist as much, and she means it. If anything, she won’t drink herself to death or overdose, just to be different. To be better.

The urge to reach for the bottle of booze or pills never goes away completely, but she doesn’t have to give into it anymore.

-

_I just wanted you to know  
That this is me trying_

She can’t go back to America but she can call. Call and explain and apologize.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I abandoned you. Again. I know that must have hurt a lot. I shouldn’t have done it. And I’m sorry I made everything about me. I care about you. You’ve been there for me too many times, and I want to be there for you too.”

And because Jolene is a better person than she is, or maybe that’s just what sisters are, she is forgiven.

It is not the miraculous, all is better forgiveness that she might have once hoped for, but it is forgiveness with a second chance, a fragile forgiveness that tells warns you to be careful, but it is forgiveness all the same. 

One day at a time.

-

_  
I just wanted you to know  
That this is me trying_

Benny receives a letter in the mail, foreign stamps dotting the envelope.

Dear Benny,

I’m sorry. I’m deeply, truly sorry. And not sorry in the way I was before, sorry for losing you. I mean, I am sorry for losing you. But I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for not calling you. I’m sorry for saying all those things about you, when I was really just trying to not hurt myself. I’m sorry for throwing how you cared back in your face. I know you were just trying to help.

I’m sorry I hurt you and I was stuck, but there are no excuses. I know you don’t want to hear it, so that’s why I’m sending you this letter. I hope one day you can forgive me, but I understand if you don’t.

Sincerely,

Beth Harmon

And a crossed out _P.S. I’m sorry for ruining what we could have had._

-

_At least I'm trying_

Beth’s return to chess is triumphant.

The magazines label it as the “comeback of the century.” Everyone wants to get a shot of Beth Harmon, dressed so perfectly and seemingly sober, as she descends upon the chess world again.

She still can’t play in America, but that’s never where the world renown was, anyway.

She wins and she wins and she wins.

But there are still no friendly faces in the crowds, no team adjournments. And so she bears that loss, reminding herself of her letters.

-

_And it's hard to be at a party  
When I feel like an open wound_

She’s been back on the chess circuit for three months when she sees Benny.

She sees him across the room at the awards ceremony. She’d successfully avoided him the whole tournament, (she doesn’t know if she’s proud of herself for that or disappointed). They hadn’t had any matches together and he hadn’t made it far enough to play her. But now, he’s here and they’re in the same row and she keeps stealing glances at him and that goddamn hat of his is preventing her from seeing if he’s doing the same.

And for a moment, she thinks she can’t breathe, and all she wants to do is run up to her room, order a bottle of wine and down it in as few gulps as possible.

But she doesn’t.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy though.

- _  
It's hard to be anywhere these days  
When all I want is you_

Benny Watts is everywhere.

She doesn’t know how. She doesn’t know if it’s to spite her, if it’s to show her he’s still good enough, he’s still plenty smart and he’s still at the top of his game (which is pretty darn near the top of the whole damn game, despite the accusations of being a loser she’d hurled at him).

Or maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with her.

That thought hurts even more.

-

_  
You're a flashback in a film reel  
On the one screen in my town_

Sometimes, she’ll go to the movies.

  
When she does, she’s reminded of her conversations with Girev, about his love of movies. He’s still World Champion, playing basically undefeated for another two years.

But his young face is starting to show wrinkles already and he doesn’t smile, even when she tells him that she went to a drive-in movie. The date where he has to play the next newest young prodigy of the chess world for the championship title is fast approaching, and it seems to loom heavily over him.

She asks him if he’s been drinking and he says no, but she recognizes the shakes in his hand and the slightly slurred speech. She mentions it to Borgov and Larchenko, who promise to keep an eye on him. She doesn’t want him washed-up by the time he’s 21.

-

After her conversation with Borgov and Larchenko, she heads up to her hotel room, a bit shaken.

She thinks about Girev’s talent and his youth and his whole life ahead of him. And prays he doesn’t make the same choices she did.

Thinks about how, if she had made different choices, how different her life could be. Where she’d be. Who she’d be with.

(She thinks of a group of friends and family who come together for her at a drop of a hat and a blonde cowboy-pirate and a life in New York together and a house in Kentucky).

But all she has is now. And she’s accepted responsibility for that. But she can hope for something different for Girev.

Sometimes, her choices are a bitter pill to swallow.

-

_And I just wanted you to know  
That this is me trying (maybe I don't quite know what to say)_

Beth’s a high enough profile player that Federations in whatever country she’s currently residing in now consult with her about who she thinks should also be invited to invitationals and tournaments.

Her list changes all time, according to the rankings of course, but there is always one constant name. She figures it’s the least she can do.

He declines the first couple of invites, but on the third one, he accepts.

She doesn’t approach him, doesn’t try to talk to him, doesn’t show up at his door.

Instead, she studies, and she helps other, younger players, and she _tries._

- _  
I just wanted you to know  
That this is me trying_

She writes to him.

She reads every game he plays, studies it rigorously. Then, she writes to him and comments on it, pointing out brilliant moves and vulnerable moves. She doesn’t know a lot these days, but she knows he’d appreciate her being straight with him.

In return, she receives short letters, analyzing her games with just as much care.

Eventually, she calls. The first time she calls, she’s afraid he’ll hang up the second he hears her voice.

Benny doesn’t. But he doesn’t speak either. The silence echoes through the phone from a million miles away.

  
She talks. She starts going over his most recent game she’s read about and detailing it and the brilliance in most of his moves, and a tiny flaw she’s found. And then she starts to talk about the upcoming matches she’s heard about in New York and who will be there. And she ends with wishing him luck.

She calls again. And he picks up again, though his end remains silent, like a player stretching out all their time. She talks about the places she’s staying. Talks about how she’s sober, and how much she wants a drink sometimes, and what she does instead. Talks about the chess halls she’s seen and the expensive boards she’s played on. Talks about the latest piece she read in a smuggled copy of _Chess Review_. Talks about the newest prodigy on the scene. Talks about Girev and Borgov and Larchenko. Talks about Jolene and her law school career. Talks about her newest ideas for inventive moves. Talks about her family and her childhood and how much she misses Alma.

She also asks questions. Asks how he’s doing. Asks what matches he’s replayed most recently. Asks how the coffee is as the bodega down the street. Asks if he still likes New York. Asks him what press interviews he’s done recently. Asks if he’s played any games recently. She asks, and there is never a spoken answer, but he stays on the line, and that is something, she supposes.

She talks about how she’s heard that he’s got a girlfriend now and she’s happy for him. She also writes him when she hears they’ve broken up and how she’s there if he wants to talk. Congratulates him when he wins the US Championship again. She always leaves a phone number where she can be reached.

This becomes a routine. Every week, she calls and the phone picks up and there is breathing on the other end, a sign of life, and she talks, and she talks, and she lays herself bare. The important thing is, she calls.

She talks, and he picks up and doesn’t hang up.

So it goes. 

-

_At least I'm trying_

Beth is at a match in Germany when she sees Benny next. She is painfully aware of his presence. Of all the phone calls and unanswered questions between them. But she doesn’t dare approach him.

He doesn’t come to her room, and she doesn’t go to his. But there is eye contact this time, and he doesn’t ignore that she’s there, talks about her by name, and will stay in big groups with her.

She does talk him and his strategy up to anyone who will listen and she does find out his hotel room number from the concierge.

Later that night, she spins the rotary phone, her hands hesitating for just a moment.

The other end picks up.

“Hello,” she says. She pauses. “It’s Beth.”

“I know, Beth.” His voice is soothing through the static of the hotel phone. It holds the promise of forgiveness and new beginnings and openings. “Hi.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you for reading and I love love love comments!!!
> 
> (Also, yes, one day I will get around to updating my Beth/Benny "i don't know what i'm doing or going to do" pregnancy fic)
> 
> Also, one day I will get into Benny's head and write a Benny-centric fic.


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